A History of Winthrop College, 1886-1900
Poster Number
25
College
College of Arts and Sciences
Department
History
Faculty Mentor
Eddie Lee, Ph.D.
Abstract
In a study of the founding years of Winthrop College (1886-1900), the institution underwent several changes, including relocation by approximately 70 miles, name changes, and construction of significant buildings. The college itself transformed from a one-room schoolhouse in Columbia (the Little Chapel) with Winthrop’s first instructor, Mary Hall Leonard, and twenty-two students, to a multi-building campus in Rock Hill with enrollment over 500 and a four-year curriculum. The formation of Winthrop Training School and the subsequent rebranding as the South Carolina Industrial & Winthrop Normal College are seminal events in South Carolina educational history: the establishment of a premier teaching college for white women in the Industrial South to educate the new Southern women of the twentieth century. My primary research questions were: 1) why was Winthrop established in South Carolina, and 2) how did Winthrop fit into women’s education in the postwar South? My research is restricted to the first fourteen years of Winthrop’s history as an institution of higher education. I use primary sources from the Pettus Archives as well as reliable secondary sources to support my thesis. My contribution to Winthrop as a graduating history major is a visual-narrative interpretation of Winthrop College in the nineteenth century.
Start Date
24-4-2015 1:20 PM
End Date
24-4-2015 2:50 PM
A History of Winthrop College, 1886-1900
Richardson Ballroom
In a study of the founding years of Winthrop College (1886-1900), the institution underwent several changes, including relocation by approximately 70 miles, name changes, and construction of significant buildings. The college itself transformed from a one-room schoolhouse in Columbia (the Little Chapel) with Winthrop’s first instructor, Mary Hall Leonard, and twenty-two students, to a multi-building campus in Rock Hill with enrollment over 500 and a four-year curriculum. The formation of Winthrop Training School and the subsequent rebranding as the South Carolina Industrial & Winthrop Normal College are seminal events in South Carolina educational history: the establishment of a premier teaching college for white women in the Industrial South to educate the new Southern women of the twentieth century. My primary research questions were: 1) why was Winthrop established in South Carolina, and 2) how did Winthrop fit into women’s education in the postwar South? My research is restricted to the first fourteen years of Winthrop’s history as an institution of higher education. I use primary sources from the Pettus Archives as well as reliable secondary sources to support my thesis. My contribution to Winthrop as a graduating history major is a visual-narrative interpretation of Winthrop College in the nineteenth century.
